non white male taster days?

[pcworld]

is this legal/fair/it seems(hopefully) that the u.s will elect a black president,quality of any sort wil show in the end so why this peverse process .I attended a union meeting this subject was raised & the reps did not want to speak about it ,four people left the meeting one of them black,no wonder the union is becoming seen as a waste of time by most of us they are just too political trying to suck up to new labour.

[fireftrm]

It certainly is legal. It is positive action, trying to encourage those, who are not white males, to apply. Is it fair? Well as the FRS still has over 95% of all entrants being white males I refer it back to you!!!!!!!!!!!

As to any of it being political, again I refer that back as it seems it was you who brought up the subject?

[toby14483]

In any recruitment process, the company needs to hire the best applicants.

If 300 apply for 10 positions, the top 10 are white male, and the number 11 is black, and the number 12 is a woman... what would happen?

I have a feeling it would be the top 8 and the number 11 and 12. I hope I'm wrong, as that would be unfair. Best applicants for the job. I would hope the top 10, no matter their colour, sexuality or gender get picked.

I don't mind the 'black awereness days' or 'female aweareness days' because as a rule I would suggest most people know if they are interested in the fire servvice before they go to days like that.

[theheat]

I think its a good idea to have these awareness days to show that the fire service is not just a job for white males but i agree with toby, once someone decides to join the service they should be treat exactly the same as everyone else applying for that job regardless of colour, sexuality and gender!!!

All the hype about the government asking for a certain percentage of the service to be female, to be asian, to be black - to me i feel this is wrong, of a female applies for the job then if she gets in it should be purely on merit which applies exactly the same to me, if i get in i would want to know that i was in because they thought that i have what it takes to be a firefighter - i would hate to think that because i had ticked a certain box it favoured me

setting the brigade targets for percentages is only going to force them to choose the minority over the better applicant, not in all cases but it will happen and probably does

however what use are my opinions ey

[pcworld]

with reference to it being fair,the best person who turns up should get the job otherwise the logic of two wrongs dont make a right applies.I did not raise the question at all it was raised at a union meeting not by me but bt paid up members,it was batted away by the reps but i suppose thats the problem with democracy it does not allways supply the answer wanted.Having riden pumps for 24 years & counting with people of all genders & colours at no time have i been accused of anything remotely sexist /racist.,although i have been ejected from a football ground for fighting with the NF.,people should be allowed to question policy without this demonisation by those who dissagree or was George Orwell right in big brother,just as a final note has anyone turned up to a job & been questioned on the sex/race of a crew?

[Nearlybaldandgrey]

once someone decides to join the service they should be treat exactly the same as everyone else applying for that job regardless of colour, sexuality and gender!!!

ALL applicants are treated the same, that's why there is now a national recruitment process.

All the hype about the government asking for a certain percentage of the service to be female, to be asian, to be black - to me i feel this is wrong

Why?
The Fire & Rescue Service is a public service and therefore should have employees which represent a cross section of the communities it serves. Obviously, you can't force people to apply for jobs and no favouritism is given to those applicants from under represented groups, but these people can bring alot to the Service in terms of language skills, understanding and knowledge that others can benefit from.

setting the brigade targets for percentages is only going to force them to choose the minority over the better applicant, not in all cases but it will happen and probably does

I would hazard a fair guess that that is something which will not happen ..... it's called positive discrimination!

[Cat]

I am a female who is currently trying to get into the fire service.  I have attended "taster days" and "female awareness days" which I personally found very useful in showing me the reality of the job and selection process.    I have to agree with theheat who says:

"of a female applies for the job then if she gets in it should be purely on merit which applies exactly the same to me, if i get in i would want to know that i was in because they thought that i have what it takes to be a firefighter - i would hate to think that because i had ticked a certain box it favoured me"

I would hate to think that someone else suffered becasue I couldn't do the job properly and only got in because I am female.  I would want to know that I have proved myself just as worthy as any other successful applicant.  I have actually had people (outside of the fire service) say to me that I only got to the physical assessments because I am female which I don't believe is the case.  Which I hasten to add I failed last week unfortunately.  Anyway, I would have thought that IF the fire service took a viewpoint that was positively discriminating candidates, it would cause them more problems when a person from a minority group was successful in trying to integrate them into the station they are assigned to?

I think that the whole process is a lot fairer now that it has become nationalized for all candidates.

[Kaiser]

We have to recognise that we work indirectly for the government and we are answerable to the DCLG.  The DCLG point the fire services in the direction that central government want us to go in.  There is little point moaning about individual chief fire officers or brigades introducing positive action, they are told to do it and so it gets done.

For my part, whilst I don't believe that the black or ethnic minority or female candidates should be given advantage over a white male, I honestly do believe that we could gain a huge amount by aiming to recruit people from different backgrounds to the service.  There is a massive increase of immigrants to the UK in the past ten years and the fire service has been slow to respond to the needs of these people.  Surely it would be wise to have firefighters that also come from these nations to join our ranks and become a part of what the fire service stands for.

I have been involved with work experience schemes and other schemes where civilians come to the fire service for recruitment information and hands on experience of the fire service.  The thing that surprised me is that after completing these experiences, just how many decided that it wasn't the career choice for them after all.  I for one would rather have an applicant do a taster session and decide it isn't for them than start basic and throw in the towel 6 months later and waste thousands of pounds and deny the chance of a better applicant elsewhere.  There are lots of people out there that really do see the fire service as a white mans domain, the taster sessions should be purely there to educate them that it isn't true.  The application process and selection proceedure should remain exactly the same, regardless of an individuals background otherwise the fire service loses all credibility.  Currently, DCLG state that the FRS does not represent the ethnic make up of the communities we serve and they are right, positive action is about brigades getting members of these communities that are underepresented in to our ranks by showing them that they can do it if they want to.

With regards to female firefighters in "our ranks", I have worked with some cracking female firefighters in my time, sure, there are some that are no use at all, but I know tons of male firefighters that are no use at all so that gets rid of that argument.

[Mike Buckley]

I agree with kaiser, the aim must be to get the best people for the job and to maintain the credibility of the service it should also reflect the makeup of the community it serves.

At the end of the day I believe the job of the fire and rescue service is to protect the community it serves and it seems that this message is getting lost.

I remember an incident following some civil disturbances and I was in a crew attending a job in the area a week or two later. We were keeping together and we were told by the locals we had nothing to fear from them. When we explained that they had been throwing bricks at us, we were told that the bricks were not being thrown at us it was just that as we had been behind the police we were in  the line of the overthrows.

In similar incidents at the time crews were actually working in the middle of the police no go areas with the locals making sure nothing happened to the crews.

[Big T]

I had a discussion with a trainer recently at a mangement course and conversation (as always) turned to equality and diversity. The trainer tried to convince a class of 20 (18 females and 2 males) that positive discrimination did not exist and that I was very cynical to believe that it existed.

My arguement was that the moment the government introduced targets for Police and fireservices etc to reach with regard to females, homosexuals or ethnic minorities they set the president for postive discrimination.

The whole point of equality and diversity is to ensure people are not turned away due to their sex, sexual orientation or ethnicity. The reality of the matter is that with the targets set by government people are being employed BECAUSE of their sex, sexual orientation or ethnicity.

To me this is unnacceptable and unfair. But, in the short term, positive discrimination is a necessary evil to undo the years of discrimination the minorities have endured. Like it or not, historically, discrimination by employers is a fact.

Are the firebrigade going to employ a minority who cannot do the job? NO
Is the fire brigade going to choose a minority over a white male, both of which can do the job? at the moment YES
Do the fire brigade need to provide awareness days etc for white males? NO

White males aspire to firefighters. It's drilled into us from birth in the UK. Just like girls dreaming of being vets. And the nerds dreaming of being doctors. The minorites need encouragement to choose the job over the miriad of other available careers and to be honest the fire services to a good job at recruiting them.

I think the debate gets lost when you assume that the service is employing rubbish people from the minorities at the detriment of capable white male candidates. I just don't think that happens.

[toby14483]

I don't think it's about if people can do the job, it's more for me anyway about if they are the best applicants at that time.

I would hate to think that I scored highly in an application process for a job and if my lady parter applied for the same job and scored 1 point less, would get it over me.

That may be a selfish example, but it does seem likely in the modern working environment.

[jokar]

I think you will find that this will all fall in the new Equalities Legilsation that is about to be passed and positive action will become fairer.

[Allen Higginson]

once someone decides to join the service they should be treat exactly the same as everyone else applying for that job regardless of colour, sexuality and gender!!!

ALL applicants are treated the same, that's why there is now a national recruitment process.

All the hype about the government asking for a certain percentage of the service to be female, to be asian, to be black - to me i feel this is wrong

Why?
The Fire & Rescue Service is a public service and therefore should have employees which represent a cross section of the communities it serves. Obviously, you can't force people to apply for jobs and no favouritism is given to those applicants from under represented groups, but these people can bring alot to the Service in terms of language skills, understanding and knowledge that others can benefit from.

setting the brigade targets for percentages is only going to force them to choose the minority over the better applicant, not in all cases but it will happen and probably does

I would hazard a fair guess that that is something which will not happen ..... it's called positive discrimination!

I don't think that you would be hazarding a guess - on a "same skin tone,different faith" idea when the new Police Service of Northern Ireland was started ,the policy was brought in for 50% recruitment of catholics over other applicants (the "others" include those from what are traditionally known as ethinc minorities).This meant that if (and only as an example) there were 100 new posts as police officers then 50 of these had be catholic,regardless if 500 applied and out of that number 80 applicants were catholic.Obviously all recruits had to go through and pass the same training but it meant that if there weren't 50 sucessful applicants from the desired faith then they couldn't make the numbers up to the desired 100 out of "the others".
Being of no particular religious persuasion I recognise the need to try to include and recruit those who traditionally (for whatever reason) are not prevailent in a particular job/career but not so that suitable candidates that are required regardless cannot be recruited due to discrimination.

[chappie]

Im new here and this subject caught my eye as i was part of the 'have a go' day in Avon that hit the headlines earlier this year.

Whatever you think of it, and it certainly had me doubting some parts, i have to commend Avon for trying something different. For some reason, women and BME groups are not applying to join us and that worries me. Its very easy to dismiss it with 'if they dont wanna join then its up to them' but i want the best people for the job and if 65% of Bristols population are not applying then we could be missing out on a lot of talented people.

[kurnal]

The Fire & Rescue Service is a public service and therefore should have employees which represent a cross section of the communities it serves.

I totally agree- but in terms of the goal when looking at the community you serve do you consider the village, the towns, the county or city, the region, the nation, the continent or the world?

And when you measure your performance against the goals do you look at by  station, brigade or nation?

Are the same targets used throughout the UK?

Should we not look closer when considering positive action or recruitment initiatives -  look at and base our targets at  serving our  local communiy level and to make sure that  the local community is fully  represented in the local services?. We could then clearly identify hot spots needing additional resources and not be spending money in areas where the service does already represent its community. Or would it be beneficial to have particular ethnic, sexual or religious role models  even in areas where the service does already  represent the community it serves?  

Is the policy the same for the wholetime and retained duty systems?

Would someone from wolverhampton stand any chance of getting a job in Powys?  

Should the policies take account of recent migrant workers into the UK and should there be targets to ensure they are also represented?

I am not stirring it- fully committed to equality and fairness just interested in knowing how these policies are percieved and implemented.